Netflix tells customer, “The Verizon network is crowded right now”

Verizon doesn't care because they know you could drop them and switch to another ISP but they're pulling the same exact shit so there would be no point. It's like buying a shitty game at Walmart then trying to return it for something better but they'll only swap it for the same shitty game.

Yeah, less than 1% of all of their distribution and carriage costs. That's like saying spilling a cup of water in the ocean is contributing to sea-level rise.

I don't think you really "get" this whole analogy thing. In what alternate reality does a cup of water = 1% of the ocean? Hint: You're about 17 orders-of-magnitude off.

But hey, since 1% is so little how about you just send me 1% of your earnings?

1% of the ocean's average depth is ~37 meters. The current climate change is very concerning, but even the highest estimates I can find put projected rises by 2100 in the neighborhood of a meter or two. So, with his analogy, Comcast's actions are going to change the internet to Waterworld.

"This is a PR stunt," a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. "We're investigating this claim but it seems misleading."

I can't help but notice how Verizon didn't actually deny this. Yes, its a PR stunt. But its true. Netflix is making sure its customers know who is to blame for this mess.

So this is all Vz’s fault? Let’s ignore the fact that unicast delivery of video is extremely inefficient. And if you are not a network engineer and operate networks, you will not understand this. And BTW, knowing how to put a pasword on your home wi-fi router does not quality you as an expert. And I knwo I am going to get voted to the bottom because I am not following the lemmings in calling the ISPs the bad guys. I’m a realist, network architect, and have run these networks for years.

Frankly, Vz has taken the high ground here by not getting in to a PR argueing match. What is happening between Netflix and the ISPs is how transit and peering relationships have pretty much worked since the Internet evolved from a govt tool. The fact is, any network will become slow, inundated, and suseptible to degradation without network management and policies. This requires work from both parties. These deals that are now being made public which have been going on for years involve much more than just paying for access to the ISP network. They include capacity planning, traffic guarantees, and agreements from both parties on how the content will be presented and transmitted. It is a partnership between both parties that allows the traffic get to the subscriber the best way possible. I think the Netflix/Comcast deal is the begining of that. Nothing is really being said that in conjunction to these deals, Netflix is starting to get a “cable channel” no different than an HBO or Showtime. But we ignore that fact.

Netflix is trying to stir the pot in the industry to try to get free carriage on last mile networks in an environement where that is not usually the case. IMO, it is Netflix’s business model that is flawed and they are trying to pit a bad relationship between subscribers and their ISPs to try to break the market. Tell me that all this is done that it is going to be better for you, the consumer. All this is going to do is divert more money to Netflix, make you hate your cable company/ISP even more, and result with us the subscribers with data caps and higher bills.

That's nice that you have an opinion and that you have all that experience, but until you can explain why internet speeds for customers in areas where Google Giber is planning to be installed triple magically without any new infrastructure I'll start buying your corporate shilling. Or even better yet, why the nation that invented the internet isn't even in the top 10 for average internet speeds. And before you start spewing your rural excuses, take a look at actual population densities.

The honest truth is that the telcos/cable companies don't want to compete, and they don't have to in most cases, and offer the lowest service possible at the highest price they can, while hoarding all their profit and not upgrading their infrastructure because they don't have to. If they had to compete, and upgrade their infrastructure to remain competitive, most of your argument would be completely invalid.

When has a monopoly ever been good for the consumer? Of course new competition is going to drive improvements to infrastructure and more competitive pricing. I think that is a proven case unless you were taking business economics in Russian in the 60s.

Bandwidth increased in Google fiber cities because of increased competition. You will have to substantiate that 3x number because I don't think it is that linear across the board. But why would a company want to increase bandwidth access on their network and invest more money if they really don't have to whether it is based on bandwidth demand or competition? And BTW, you Netflix streaming is going to work just as well over a 15M connection or 300M, 99% of the population does not need or could utilize that kind of bandwidth which is why speeds have not increased dramatically. And if an iOS update takes 5 mins to download instead of 30 seconds, is it the end of the world? And maybe it is the backend infrastructure that is causing the long download times? It's not always and usually not the last mile that is the bottleneck.

And why does the Internet infrastructure in the US seem to be behind the rest of the world? Maybe it is the same reason our cities, water supply systems, roads, and electrical grid all in the same state of disrepair? Maybe it is because we were first and we are now riding on first generation technology where cities that got Internet later got to learn from us and have newer technology? One of the main reasons is because most of our last mile infrastructure is copper based and outdated and we are using what we have and making the best of it. People are complaining now of a $1 hike on Netflix. The cost to replace or overbuild that existing infrastructure will cause your Internet bills to go through the roof. In fact, in completely validates my argument. It is almost always true that building new is cheaper than upgrading old. And the fact that Google Fiber doesn't want to play by the franchise rules and deliver fiber to everyone makes my point. When you try to serve everyone in a market, you have to drag everyone to the middle when it comes to service, price, and availability. And how about someone chiming in that has Google Fiber. Have you got those gigabit speeds yet? I didn't think so.

It's funny, maybe we should classify ISPs as a utility then since you're comparing them, and saying they're facing the same terrible issues. I'm sure Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would love that.

As far as a Netflix stream working as well on a 300 mbps connection as a 15 Mbps connection, I'm pretty sure even you know an ISP's network would have to be better equipped to support everyone using 300 Mbps as opposed to everyone using 15 Mbps.

Furthermore, when you say people don't need that much speed, you sound like the people who use to say who needs a cell phone? That's a fallacious argument if I've ever seen one. If there's a demand for it, and someone meets the demand, it will sell. Unfortunately, with how things work in this country, the start up costs for a High Speed ISP are unimaginably prohibitive for anyone outside a massive company like Google. And even if a small start up did emerge, the local telco/cable company would just raise their caps to meet this new service without any additional cost them, completely nullifying the start up's investment and market share.

You can cry about these companies having to play by franchise rules, but I already pay a fee for that. Just like everything else related to taxes and regulation, those costs are passed down onto the consumer, so cry about Google Fiber not being labeled as a franchise more.

I'd love to hear the story you'd weave about how they made huge investments and rebuilt almost their entire network in the area in 2 months. All they did was give a temporary speed increase to their customers that they probably could have had years ago, the actual upgrade will complete sometime soon this year, almost 10 months later.

After reading several of your posts in this thread, I'm fairly certain you are just a troll who probably is being paid by a telco/cable lobbying arm. If you were actually doing all this IT work you speak of, you wouldn't have time for this nonsensical garbage you're peddling.

Just like Netflix shouldn't have gone with the lowest bid transit provider or did more due dilligence to ensure that enough bandwidth would be available, rather than running into the fact afterwards. But then that would make Netflix less money...

Cogent has stated that the links are not congested on its side -- since no ISP has bothered to refute that I'm going to take it as the truth. The fact that the ISPs are trying to pretend that they're a peer to extract tolls isn't and shouldn't be Netflix's problem. Surely if Netflix is such a tax on the network they'd use Netflix's free OpenConnect servers to reduce costs?

With regards to Netflix, you can throw out all of the CDN bullshit. Netflix handles almost all of their content delivery themselves, and they offer free peering and cache appliances to any ISP with sufficient peak utilization..

I'm just using the terminology of the post I was responding to. Is Netflix willing to provide for free and maintain hundreds of cache servers located geographically close to the end user? A few servers won't at the data center won't make any difference.

Sorry, I wasn't calling your wording bullshit. More so how people want to think Netflix is paying the CDN, when for the most part they aren't anymore. Netflix does it themselves instead of paying someone.

As for the caching servers, part of the Netflix OpenConnect service is providing ISPs with caching appliances that they can colocate closer to the end customer. These caching appliances prefill themselves during off peak on a schedule the ISP dictates.

or better yet take Netflix up on the offer and peer with them. Nope, that wouldn't get Verizon more money...

Just like Netflix shouldn't have gone with the lowest bid transit provider or did more due dilligence to ensure that enough bandwidth would be available, rather than running into the fact afterwards. But then that would make Netflix less money...

Again that's coming back to Verizon working with Netflix, but if this is intentional and Verizon intentionally doesn't upgrade that doesn't give Netflix any option except to pay directly.

I'm expecting the other shoe to drop with MLB.tv soon as well - of course, if they would actually let you choose your stream quality instead of automatically choosing the biggest bandwidth hog, it might be a little easier on the ISPs.

I find it quite obvious what Comcast is doing when I am able to watch an HD stream of MLB on Clear WiMax without issue (the slowest ISP in Netflix's US index) but when I switch over to the Comcast connection, it is basically like watching a slideshow.

Yeah, less than 1% of all of their distribution and carriage costs. That's like saying spilling a cup of water in the ocean is contributing to sea-level rise.

I don't think you really "get" this whole analogy thing. In what alternate reality does a cup of water = 1% of the ocean? Hint: You're about 17 orders-of-magnitude off.

But hey, since 1% is so little how about you just send me 1% of your earnings?

It wasn't an analogy as it was a point. The costs of interconnects and what Netflix is paying is insignificant to their overall costs of acquiring and delivering content. And the $1 price hike is way more in relation to what they are having to pay.

Maybe, If verizon gets 10000 calls an hour during next 'House Of Cards' premiere they will realize what is cheaper:Fix the problemOr keep pretending it does not exists while the need to hire 100 CSRs listening to complaints all day

#capitalism

Considering how little a telephone operator in Bangladesh costs, probably the second option.

Actually all Verizon FiOS Calls are taken by Americans in America.

Source: I used to work in a FiOS Call Center. And yes, we got calls about slow Netflix speed all the time. We were instructed to run a speedtest (on the Verizon approved and hosted speedtest site of course) and if it was in acceptable ranges we had to advise the customer that it was not Verizon's network or equipment that it was whatever provider/website(again, mostly Netflix) that was the issue.

I call bullshit. I'm a FIOS customer and I've had to make a number of service calls. Without fail, they have ALL ended up in an off-shore call center. Even in the few instances where I've used the IM help, the other end is clearly not a native English speaker. Maybe some of the higher level support is based in the US, but the initial support absolutely is not.

The difference being that Netflix is compelled by commercial rationale to provide the best possible service to their customers, whereas Verizon has exactly the opposite commercial compulsion with regard to Netflix's customers.

Of course, if Netflix or Level 3 or Cogent were paying Verizon for the bandwidth, then Verizon would have a very good commercial compulsion with regards to Netflix's customers. Similarly if Verizon customers were paying metered bandwidth, the way Internet transit between networks is sold, then again they'd have an incentive for having people consume as much bandwidth as possible.

I don't like the idea of metering either, but specifically selling Internet access on the premise of peak bandwidth, but not actual achieved transfer to any particular network, does certainly give some poor incentives to avoid upgrading interconnects, as you note.

I do find the complaints about "double-dipping" as a generic problem to be odd. Two-sided markets are extremely common, such as people who pay annual fees on credit cards, when the credit cards go around and charge merchants transaction fees. Newspapers charge for subscriptions even to people who just want to see the classifieds and coupons, but also charge for running the ads. Console companies like Microsoft and Sony charge game developers for game development tools and for putting the game on the downloadable service, and also charge end users (taking a cut of the end user charge.) Often the correct answer in a two-sided market is to charge one side, typically end users zero, because of network effects, but not always. (A common example given is how the PDF format took off once Adobe made the PDF reader free to download, even though they continued to charge for creating new PDFs.) Even some two-sided markets with a nominal zero cost to end users have non cash costs-- forcing end users to watch ads is a particularly common example (Hulu, Google, YouTube.)

We commonly see two-sided markets (or "double dipping") work the other way with networks, as how medium size and smaller ISPs like Cox pay Cogent and others for Internet transit-- so in that case, Cogent gets money from Netflix to carry the traffic, and also gets money from Cox to carry the traffic. It's very unsurprising that the smaller ISPs, who are likely to have to pay Cogent and Level 3 for transit, are much more willing to accept Netflix's "Open Connect" private CDN, or indeed offer free hosting for other CDN hosts in order to reduce their transit costs.

I think that there's a good case for saying that there's something special about consumer ISPs getting the money from Cogent and Level 3 instead of the other way around, but in general two-sided markets aren't that strange. Making the argument against requires more than just a generic invocation of "double-dipping."

There's quite a lot of emerging research in monopoly power in two sided markets, and it is far from clear that end users are best off (either financially or otherwise) if payments are legally restricted to only one side of the market. Certainly in some cases some people may win and some may lose; just as theoretically non-sports fan subscribers to cable TV can be forced to pay for some of the costs of expensive sports networks under bundling, theoretically non-Netflix subscribers can be forced to pay through higher ISP subscription costs the costs for the ISP to upgrade the network and interconnects to carry Netflix traffic. It's far from guaranteed, though.

Yea, I'm being a bit mouthy, but more and more I'm seeing providers aren't upgrading capacity themselves to intentionally introduce congestion.

Again that's coming back to Verizon working with Netflix, but if this is intentional and Verizon intentionally doesn't upgrade that doesn't give Netflix any option except to pay directly.

Yeah I agree with you. I think both sides should cooperate with each other as much as possible; but allowing extremes (like receiver must upgrade to handle all received data or a backbone provider having exclusive coverage of a large residential ISP) leads to exploitation by one side.

I feel there needs to some sort of code of conduct whereby blame can be assigned and actions taken:

-If the ISP does not have enough downstream bandwidth to handle all its customers demands, it's the ISPs fault-If the ISP tries selling transit for traffic requested by its client at above market price or is unavailable, it's the ISPs fault-If the delivery network delivers data to the nearest exchange point to the end-user but the ISP is congested, then it's the ISPs fault.

-If the sender only delivers data to a few exchange points for a geographically large ISP, then it's the sender's fault-If the sender knowingly tries sending more data to an ISP than it has legally available, then it's the sender's fault.

Though in the end, I think the best solution is nationalize or turn the backbone into a utility with standardized costs for delivering data that is available to everyone. This would include the Tier 1 companies as well as the backbone portion of the ISPs.

Settlement-free agreements always seemed to me an unfair advantage for large companies and something that is inherently anti-competition.

When private companies need to do this it means the FCC is not doing their job for the average consumer.

This is why organizations like that exist in the first place but I don´t think they ever verified consumers speeds at all or quality, and even if they would, they would never dare to make a public report.

So I assume its up to Netflix and other companies to send the message they need to downgrade video quality since your ISP sucks and its network is oversold.

"This is a PR stunt," a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. "We're investigating this claim but it seems misleading."

I can't help but notice how Verizon didn't actually deny this. Yes, its a PR stunt. But its true. Netflix is making sure its customers know who is to blame for this mess.

So this is all Vz’s fault? Let’s ignore the fact that unicast delivery of video is extremely inefficient. And if you are not a network engineer and operate networks, you will not understand this. And BTW, knowing how to put a pasword on your home wi-fi router does not quality you as an expert. And I knwo I am going to get voted to the bottom because I am not following the lemmings in calling the ISPs the bad guys. I’m a realist, network architect, and have run these networks for years.

Frankly, Vz has taken the high ground here by not getting in to a PR argueing match. What is happening between Netflix and the ISPs is how transit and peering relationships have pretty much worked since the Internet evolved from a govt tool. The fact is, any network will become slow, inundated, and suseptible to degradation without network management and policies. This requires work from both parties. These deals that are now being made public which have been going on for years involve much more than just paying for access to the ISP network. They include capacity planning, traffic guarantees, and agreements from both parties on how the content will be presented and transmitted. It is a partnership between both parties that allows the traffic get to the subscriber the best way possible. I think the Netflix/Comcast deal is the begining of that. Nothing is really being said that in conjunction to these deals, Netflix is starting to get a “cable channel” no different than an HBO or Showtime. But we ignore that fact.

Netflix is trying to stir the pot in the industry to try to get free carriage on last mile networks in an environement where that is not usually the case. IMO, it is Netflix’s business model that is flawed and they are trying to pit a bad relationship between subscribers and their ISPs to try to break the market. Tell me that all this is done that it is going to be better for you, the consumer. All this is going to do is divert more money to Netflix, make you hate your cable company/ISP even more, and result with us the subscribers with data caps and higher bills.

That's nice that you have an opinion and that you have all that experience, but until you can explain why internet speeds for customers in areas where Google Giber is planning to be installed triple magically without any new infrastructure I'll start buying your corporate shilling. Or even better yet, why the nation that invented the internet isn't even in the top 10 for average internet speeds. And before you start spewing your rural excuses, take a look at actual population densities.

The honest truth is that the telcos/cable companies don't want to compete, and they don't have to in most cases, and offer the lowest service possible at the highest price they can, while hoarding all their profit and not upgrading their infrastructure because they don't have to. If they had to compete, and upgrade their infrastructure to remain competitive, most of your argument would be completely invalid.

When has a monopoly ever been good for the consumer? Of course new competition is going to drive improvements to infrastructure and more competitive pricing. I think that is a proven case unless you were taking business economics in Russian in the 60s.

Bandwidth increased in Google fiber cities because of increased competition. You will have to substantiate that 3x number because I don't think it is that linear across the board. But why would a company want to increase bandwidth access on their network and invest more money if they really don't have to whether it is based on bandwidth demand or competition? And BTW, you Netflix streaming is going to work just as well over a 15M connection or 300M, 99% of the population does not need or could utilize that kind of bandwidth which is why speeds have not increased dramatically. And if an iOS update takes 5 mins to download instead of 30 seconds, is it the end of the world? And maybe it is the backend infrastructure that is causing the long download times? It's not always and usually not the last mile that is the bottleneck.

And why does the Internet infrastructure in the US seem to be behind the rest of the world? Maybe it is the same reason our cities, water supply systems, roads, and electrical grid all in the same state of disrepair? Maybe it is because we were first and we are now riding on first generation technology where cities that got Internet later got to learn from us and have newer technology? One of the main reasons is because most of our last mile infrastructure is copper based and outdated and we are using what we have and making the best of it. People are complaining now of a $1 hike on Netflix. The cost to replace or overbuild that existing infrastructure will cause your Internet bills to go through the roof. In fact, in completely validates my argument. It is almost always true that building new is cheaper than upgrading old. And the fact that Google Fiber doesn't want to play by the franchise rules and deliver fiber to everyone makes my point. When you try to serve everyone in a market, you have to drag everyone to the middle when it comes to service, price, and availability. And how about someone chiming in that has Google Fiber. Have you got those gigabit speeds yet? I didn't think so.

It's funny, maybe we should classify ISPs as a utility then since you're comparing them, and saying they're facing the same terrible issues. I'm sure Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would love that.

In fact, as a conspiracy theorist, I feel that the net neutrality debates are being fueled by the cable companies to be classified as a utility. How many utilities have competition? And then they will have govt approval to implement data caps and network management to work within utility parameters such as pricing. Yeah, I want to have that kind of Internet. And look at how well utilities have managed our infrastructure such as water, roads, and power. They are falling apart. It doesn't sound like an Internet I want.

As far as a Netflix stream working as well on a 300 mbps connection as a 15 Mbps connection, I'm pretty sure even you know an ISP's network would have to be better equipped to support everyone using 300 Mbps as opposed to everyone using 15 Mbps.

Quote:

Of course. Which is why data speeds don't expand unless there is a market demand to increase them. The end points control how much access subscribers have which allows ISPs to manage data growth and infrastructure. The ISPs could build more robust networks, but that is going to increase the costs you pay to access that network. Interesting that people have an issue with this on the cable network but have adopted this a status quo on the wireless network.

Furthermore, when you say people don't need that much speed, you sound like the people who use to say who needs a cell phone? That's a fallacious argument if I've ever seen one. If there's a demand for it, and someone meets the demand, it will sell. Unfortunately, with how things work in this country, the start up costs for a High Speed ISP are unimaginably prohibitive for anyone outside a massive company like Google. And even if a small start up did emerge, the local telco/cable company would just raise their caps to meet this new service without any additional cost them, completely nullifying the start up's investment and market share.

Quote:

I think if you look at average network access speeds, it rounds out between 256-512K. A lot less than a couple of hundred Mb. Why would cable companies sink large amounts of money in to a network when the users aren't demanding it? I am all for competition. i think that would drive a open access system and give people what they want based on market demand. I think that is a better route than having the government step in because that always works out in the end. And if those costs aren't prohibitively expensive for Google, then why aren't they rolling this out with more gusto? IMO, Google Fiber is another PR stunt to try to force higher speeds to deliver their services as well on the backs of the ISPs. I am all for a lot of what people are proposing. My issue is more about who should be paying who to transit what. Netflix is getting a free ride based on an Internet model when in fact they should be footing the bill to help deliver their content to an end subscriber.

You can cry about these companies having to play by franchise rules, but I already pay a fee for that. Just like everything else related to taxes and regulation, those costs are passed down onto the consumer, so cry about Google Fiber not being labeled as a franchise more.

But the franchsie rules dictate who gets served by that infrastructure. Google is trying to pick and choose similar to FiOS. Next we will be complaining that only the rich have the best Internet access because they live in the right parts of town. In fact, the franchise agreements try to make sure everyone gets served part equally.

This isn;t happening over night and AT&T isn't throwing a switch. They are deploying new technology that leverages DSL and fiber based solutions. And since it isn't here yet, it could also be a PR stunt. And now the stories seem to be this is only going to happen if the DirectV deal goes through. Hmmm....

I'd love to hear the story you'd weave about how they made huge investments and rebuilt almost their entire network in the area in 2 months. All they did was give a temporary speed increase to their customers that they probably could have had years ago, the actual upgrade will complete sometime soon this year, almost 10 months later.

After reading several of your posts in this thread, I'm fairly certain you are just a troll who probably is being paid by a telco/cable lobbying arm. If you were actually doing all this IT work you speak of, you wouldn't have time for this nonsensical garbage you're peddling.

Make any speculation you want. I am as anti-corporate and pro an open Internet as anyone. My job is in fact working with partner ISPs on how to deliver traffic and negotiate with ISPs. My concern is that the net neutrality debate is getting skewed and the consumer is being used as the pawn. And a lot of people really don't understand how the Internet works and are being led with analogies that don't really reflect the problem. There are no "fast lanes" Traffic isn't being slowed. In fact, by Netflix working with Comcast, Vz and others on how to deliver the traffic, they are being good network citizen by moving the bulk of their traffic off the Internet pipes and to connections that better benefit the CDNs/ISPs and improve the customer experience. What makes me mad through is that Netflix is trying to pit the ISP customers against the folks that they are dependent on making their business and fear that their business model isn;t scalable as network traffic increases. Instead, they are trying to get the government to intervene on their behalf instead of doing business. IMO, not different than pitting lobbyists against our environmental issues. And to prove my point, I am against the Comcast/TWC merger. More so for content and carriage distribution but I agree that when content providers need to work with the ISP on how to move the traffic, the new Comcast will not be easy to work with.

I do however love that Verizon and co continue claiming cheap high speed broadband is an impossibility, competition would ruin them, they deserve money from Netflix etc... And yet in every other modern country we have the exact opposite system, and much better internet as a result.

It's like the evidence they are wrong exists, but the regulators are ignoring it.

Hey, Verizon! Netflix told me the same thing. FiOS is congested and slow so the quality of my video streams must be downgraded. That's funny because I was under the impression Verizon had the best network. Not so apparently! It's even more embarrassing for Verizon when my AT&T phone can stream 1080p Netflix content but my FiOS fiber to the home connection cannot. We need Google Fiber in the Washington DC / Baltimore metro area ASAP!

I love this "PR stunt" Netflix is pulling. Hit Verizon where it hurts. They brag about having cutting-edge networks. Meanwhile Netflix streams act like FiOS is back in the AOL dial-up era in terms of performance.

Big Dragon, I'm a FiOS customer in the same market. While I hope Google comes someday soon, I don't have the huge issue with Verizon that you seem to.

If Verizon is actively (or passively) bottlenecking Netflix, then why does Netflix run just fine on my iPad over my home wifi? And why does it run so much better on my new Roku device (at 1080p) then it does when I try to stream directly to my Sony TV? It would seem that anything running Netflix over my FiOS connection should run awful, regardless of the device, but that simply isn't the case. The only things that seems to have a problem are my Sony TV and BluRay, which makes me think the fault is more with Sony, rather than Verizon.

And this point, I'm disinclined to trust either Netflix or Verizon on this matter, except to the extent that this is a simple commercial shoving match between a couple of bull elephants - and we're the grass beneath their feet.

"It is sad that Netflix is willing to deliberately mislead its customers so they can be used as pawns in business negotiations and regulatory proceedings."Because Verizon would never use its customers as pawns in negotiations or regulatory proceedings. Ok pot.

Make any speculation you want. I am as anti-corporate and pro an open Internet as anyone. My job is in fact working with partner ISPs on how to deliver traffic and negotiate with ISPs. My concern is that the net neutrality debate is getting skewed and the consumer is being used as the pawn. And a lot of people really don't understand how the Internet works and are being led with analogies that don't really reflect the problem. There are no "fast lanes" Traffic isn't being slowed. In fact, by Netflix working with Comcast, Vz and others on how to deliver the traffic, they are being good network citizen by moving the bulk of their traffic off the Internet pipes and to connections that better benefit the CDNs/ISPs and improve the customer experience. What makes me mad through is that Netflix is trying to pit the ISP customers against the folks that they are dependent on making their business and fear that their business model isn;t scalable as network traffic increases. Instead, they are trying to get the government to intervene on their behalf instead of doing business. IMO, not different than pitting lobbyists against our environmental issues. And to prove my point, I am against the Comcast/TWC merger. More so for content and carriage distribution but I agree that when content providers need to work with the ISP on how to move the traffic, the new Comcast will not be easy to work with.

So look, I'm not gonna downvote you, and I'm not going to outright dismiss you - Mainly because many commenters have been refuting the same arguments again and again and are tired of it, but I want to be certain of my conviction, which is why I'm willing to question it. (I'm like Apollo Justice in the new Ace Attorney game!)

You say that "by Netflix working with Comcast, ... they improve the customer experience." That doesn't really make sense to me. They were already perfectly willing to *work with them*, and even offered to give them local CDN boxes to reduce load going across their systems. My understanding is that what happened is that Netflix *paid* Comcast, which finally lead to Comcast making some, apparently fast and easy, network changes to peer better with Cogent and meet demand.

Forgive me for presuming, but that really seems like Comcast was holding a superior customer experience hostage, against monetization. If there were any more hardware/network-related actions Netflix could have taken at that time to improve the experience, they would have done it, but they had none. In the end, the solution was *monetary*; "paying a toll" that had not existed before.

As for the term "Fast lane", I agree it's not the best term - but some traffic IS, without any argument, faster than others, which is why I simply use the term "Faster lane". And ISPs can certainly, based on network support prioritization, determine where the "faster lane" lies.

I could be cutting some corners in that explanation, which is why I'm throwing the ball back to you, but I'm still pretty doubtful of what you're saying.

For anyone trying to blame Netflix's network for their slow performance consider this.

If Netflix itself is slow:1) No ISP will ever have the performance for 1080p video.2) The performance of other ISPs wouldn't be as high as they are.3) The performance would not suddenly go up once ISP issues are corrected.

Netflix has every reason to deliver the video to you as fast as possible because they know you want to stream these big ass movies. ISPs have every reason to spend as little as possible on their network because it's just an ongoing expense. That's why these arguments pop up in the first place: the last mile ISPs' goals directly oppose those of Internet services like Netflix. This is only going to get resolved when the goals of ISPs and Internet services are aligned, and the market is not set up that way right now. It is in other countries.

Make any speculation you want. I am as anti-corporate and pro an open Internet as anyone. My job is in fact working with partner ISPs on how to deliver traffic and negotiate with ISPs. My concern is that the net neutrality debate is getting skewed and the consumer is being used as the pawn. And a lot of people really don't understand how the Internet works and are being led with analogies that don't really reflect the problem. There are no "fast lanes" Traffic isn't being slowed. In fact, by Netflix working with Comcast, Vz and others on how to deliver the traffic, they are being good network citizen by moving the bulk of their traffic off the Internet pipes and to connections that better benefit the CDNs/ISPs and improve the customer experience. What makes me mad through is that Netflix is trying to pit the ISP customers against the folks that they are dependent on making their business and fear that their business model isn;t scalable as network traffic increases. Instead, they are trying to get the government to intervene on their behalf instead of doing business. IMO, not different than pitting lobbyists against our environmental issues. And to prove my point, I am against the Comcast/TWC merger. More so for content and carriage distribution but I agree that when content providers need to work with the ISP on how to move the traffic, the new Comcast will not be easy to work with.

So look, I'm not gonna downvote you, and I'm not going to outright dismiss you - Mainly because many commenters have been refuting the same arguments again and again and are tired of it, but I want to be certain of my conviction, which is why I'm willing to question it. (I'm like Apollo Justice in the new Ace Attorney game!)

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You say that "by Netflix working with Comcast, ... they improve the customer experience." That doesn't really make sense to me. They were already perfectly willing to *work with them*, and even offered to give them local CDN boxes to reduce load going across their systems. My understanding is that what happened is that Netflix *paid* Comcast, which finally lead to Comcast making some, apparently fast and easy, network changes to peer better with Cogent and meet demand.

I had this discussion with a Canadian ISP at ITW in Chicago a few weeks ago because they were boasting that they had to deploy 10's of more 10G ports to handle the Netflix traffic. I asked them why they were doing that. I told that it was inefficient to maintain all of those links and that they should work with Netflix to deploy a CDN in their network to host the content efficiently. Their concern was that they would not have any control over how much of the last mile Netflix used for delivery and could impact the experience for everyone else. By employing the interconnects and transit, at leas they had to ability to control how much traffic floods their network. I'm not saying either way is better or the right way. The point is, distributing video in a unicast method without network management can have deleterious consequences on any network, no matter how much bandwidth there is. And new capacity cant be spun up overnight, especially on the edge. Tim Wu's conclusion and most rational network architects and engineers state that traffic management is the best, most cost effective, and method of handling this traffic. That might mean that content providers may have to work with ISPs on how to deliver that traffic which is what Netflix and Comcast ended up doing. And in the end, Netflix is going to get a channel on the set top box to deliver their content. What more could Netflix want than to have that type of access to every house with a cable connection? Netflix was just upset that Comcast insisted that Netflix foot part of the bill because now every Tier 1,2,and 3 ISP out there is now going to demand the same thing. And they are rightfully allowed to have those discussions. It is also why the FCC is staying away from it.

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Forgive me for presuming, but that really seems like Comcast was holding a superior customer experience hostage, against monetization. If there were any more hardware/network-related actions Netflix could have taken at that time to improve the experience, they would have done it, but they had none. In the end, the solution was *monetary*; "paying a toll" that had not existed before.

That toll has always existed, it has just never been brought out to the public in such a controversial discussion.

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As for the term "Fast lane", I agree it's not the best term - but some traffic IS, without any argument, faster than others, which is why I simply use the term "Faster lane". And ISPs can certainly, based on network support prioritization, determine where the "faster lane" lies.

The fast lane is just trying to scare people in to a way of thinking. It has always been policy to direct connect with other networks that deliver large amounts of traffic from one place to another. This happens for many reasons. 1. A better customer experience because the traffic has a "shorter" more optimized path to the end user. 2. Other Internet traffic does not have to contend with queuing buffers for time going through routers and may get put on a lower priority for voice or network management traffic 3. Contending with packet per second throughput limitations on routers and switches, etc., Instead, people want all that traffic to be treated equally. Unfortunately, TCP/IP was not designed for latent sensitive traffic. In fact, it likes applications where the data gets there when it gets there. That's why we call it connectionless. To get around that, QoS/CoS was implemented to help voice, video, and other latent sensitive traffic get there to make a good experience. But now the fear has been put in people that is bad because it preferences some traffic over others. Now, if an ISP preferences their "own" voice traffic over say Vonage, I think that is wrong. To preference an ISPs own voice packet over a Google email packet, that is OK based on the type of application. But the draconian viewpoints people are making are stating that all traffic should be equal and we should throw bandwidth at the problem. That is just not rational, cost effective, or plain possible.

When I say that Comcast and Netflix need to work together. It is to say that they need to figure out the best way to deliver that traffic mutually. But that is going to cost money. To expect Comcast to foot the bill for an over the top provider to deliver traffic in a method that is not economical or can break a network is just plain unfair.

I could be cutting some corners in that explanation, which is why I'm throwing the ball back to you, but I'm still pretty doubtful of what you're saying.

For anyone trying to blame Netflix's network for their slow performance consider this.

If Netflix itself is slow:1) No ISP will ever have the performance for 1080p video.2) The performance of other ISPs wouldn't be as high as they are.3) The performance would not suddenly go up once ISP issues are corrected.

Netflix has every reason to deliver the video to you as fast as possible because they know you want to stream these big ass movies. ISPs have every reason to spend as little as possible on their network because it's just an ongoing expense. That's why these arguments pop up in the first place: the last mile ISPs' goals directly oppose those of Internet services like Netflix. This is only going to get resolved when the goals of ISPs and Internet services are aligned, and the market is not set up that way right now. It is in other countries.

I would trust Netflix 99.99% and Verizon 0.01%.

I think that's a flawed analysis. ISPs connect to Netflix in different ways. Some have the Open Connect direct peering (because it makes business sense for that ISP), and some get content through another CDN (like the Comcast CDN that Netflix just agreed to use) or other form of paid direct peering, and some get access via an unpaid interconnect with Cogent. And even if the ISP is getting the data via the interconnect with Cogent, their port may not be as congested as the port that your (or my) ISP uses to connect to Cogent. It's possible for the performance on ISP to vary without either ISP being a particularly good or bad actor.

And to the extent that "correcting the ISP issues" is moving Netflix traffic off of Cogent and on to the ISP's existing CDN network, then yeah, it does make sense that these issues are immediately resolved - in one fell swoop the network traffic pattern changes, less traffic flows through congested ports, and performance improves.

And ISPs do have an interest in delivering content efficiently and providing a decent customer experience, because if it sucks too bad customers actually will quit using it until it improves or another provider enters the market.

Netflix, on the other hand, does have an interest in shifting any blame for service problems off onto the ISPs. Perhaps the Netflix servers are just slammed and can't keep up. Or perhaps Netflix agree to use the Verizon CDN, but only at 2/3 of the service level need to ensure quality service for Verizon's customers. Look at the posts on the this tread - running about 9 to 1 against Verizon. If Netflix knows you are predisposed - and encourages you - to blame Verizon, rather than Netflix, for any service problem you have, why wouldn't they?

And if Verizon is the entire problem, why does my Netflix service run fine over my iPad and Roku, but sucks on my Sony TV, even thought they are all served off of the same FiOS feed?

I'm not saying that Netflix is the bad guy or that Verizon is innocent. I don't know the truth of the situation because I'm not privy to all of the various deals and agreements between the parties and the actual network performance data - but I'm guessing most of the other folks here don't have access to that information either.

In light of the lack of information, I'm not predisposed to leaping to a conclusion based on what appears to be a self-serving (possibly true) statement by a party with a strong financial interest in the matter.

I don't know why they waited until after they started caving to ISPs' demands before they started doing this. They should have done this first and then just let the ISPs take the heat from their customers.

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That, or when they announced their price increase, lay the blame squarely on Comcast and AT&T's shoulders. Let their customers know exactly why their monthly cost is increasing.

Oddly enough, I had a discussion with a coworker who thought Netflix was the blame for the cost increase. He said something like "They have so many subscribers they can do what they want"

After I explained what's going on with Net Neutrality he realized the price hike was to offset the extortion costs from the ISP's.

Where did you get your information as to the delta in Netflix's costs after the Comcast/Verizon deals?

Just make it up?

Ever consider that you might actually be the one spreading misinformation? According to industry estimates, the Comcast fee even if applied only to Comcast customers (which is to say if the fee were not spread across all Netflix customers) would account for only a small portion of the $1 increase. Add to that the fact that if the fee were sufficient to impact Netflix's profits on a level that would require a 12% bump in revenues, that would have to have been reported to shareholders...it was not.

Basically, all evidence points to Netflix needing to implement a price hike to cover content acquisition and increasing profit targets, and that ISP connection deals are at most eating a small portion of price increases that would already have happened.

The company hinted heavily in its shareholder letter that the price increases were coming as a result of the paid peering arrangements the company has struck with providers like Comcast and Verizon

What numbers there are don't work out, and what evidence there is suggests that Netflix was going to need a price hike anyway (again, due to content acquisition, overhead, and increasing profit targets).

While I don't disagree that paying Comcast/Verizon/et al is the sole purpose for the price hike, I don't see anywhere in the Share holders letter that the price hike is solely due to changes in content acquisition. Unless you have been given a Shareholders letter different from one that's been made public:

Our current view is to do a one or two dollar increase, depending on the country, later this quarter for new members only. Existing members would stay at current pricing (e.g. $7.99 in the U.S.) for a generous time period. These changes will enable us to acquire more content and deliver an even better streaming experience.

What is interesting is an increase of "Streaming Content Obligations" which is a loss of ~$800M in one quarter from Q3 last year to Q4 this year. I agree, the price hike is to increase profit targets. A large piece of that could be due to a substantial increase in costs for "Streaming Content Obligations"

If your retort will be "But there was a drop of ~$200M from Q4 last year to Q1 this year," well I ask you to take a look at Q1 of 2013 and see there is still an increase of $1.4B in costs due to "Streaming Content Obligations"....in one year!

I've cited a few of my sources....can you cite some of yours so we're on the same page? What articles are you referring to that states only %1 of the price increase is due to Streaming Content Obligations?

And please don't post a link to anything on Fox News because I won't read it....

While I don't disagree that paying Comcast/Verizon/et al is the sole purpose for the price hike, I don't see anywhere in the Share holders letter that the price hike is solely due to changes in content acquisition.

I never once claimed it was solely due to anything. If you believe otherwise, quote it. It was due to content acquisition, infrastructure costs and upgrades, general overhead, profit targets, and due to increased costs from deals like the Comcast/Verizon deal. You know, multiple things across their entire business. I even stated that a significant percentage may be due to that last (again, numbers I've seen suggested it's less than a quarter, perhaps much less).

I'm replying to people claiming it's due to a single factor, and saying they are wrong.

Quote:

Unless you have been given a Shareholders letter different from one that's been made public:

Our current view is to do a one or two dollar increase, depending on the country, later this quarter for new members only. Existing members would stay at current pricing (e.g. $7.99 in the U.S.) for a generous time period. These changes will enable us to acquire more content and deliver an even better streaming experience.

What is interesting is an increase of "Streaming Content Obligations" which is a loss of ~$800M in one quarter from Q3 last year to Q4 this year. I agree, the price hike is to increase profit targets. A large piece of that could be due to a substantial increase in costs for "Streaming Content Obligations"

If your retort will be "But there was a drop of ~$200M from Q4 last year to Q1 this year," well I ask you to take a look at Q1 of 2013 and see there is still an increase of $1.4B in costs due to "Streaming Content Obligations"....in one year!

I've cited a few of my sources....can you cite some of yours so we're on the same page? What articles are you referring to that states only %1 of the price increase is due to Streaming Content Obligations?

And please don't post a link to anything on Fox News because I won't read it....

I'm...uncertain what you're saying here. Your post doesn't seem to match the implied context, because I'm nearly positive that "streaming content obligations" per the shareholder guidance is not the cost of streaming content (like getting data from server to client), but rather the obligations they have in relation to the acquisition of content licenses for the service. It's what they're paying for movies and shows, not bandwidth, which is...in line with what I was saying?

How do you account for streaming content?-We generally license content for a fixed fee and a defined time period with payment terms varying by agreement.-The signing of a license agreement to obtain future titles creates a streaming content obligation which we include in our Contractual Obligations footnote disclosure in our 10Q’s and 10K’s. If the minimum obligations are quantifiable, the amounts are included in the tabular disclosure. For deals with unknown future output, the obligation is added in the table when the title and its cost become known.-Once a title is made available for us to use on our service, a Content Liability (current for the portion due within one year and non-current for the portion beyond one year) and a Content Library asset are recorded (current for the portion to be amortized within one year and non-current for the portion beyond one year) on the Balance Sheet.-We amortize the license fee for most titles on a straight-line basis over the license period. For original titles, see next question.

I'll admit I could be wrong, and I'm open to evidence to the contrary.

If I have time later I'll try to dig up the estimates I saw (and they are only estimates, it was a closed door deal), but they put the Comcast deal at somewhere on the order of $50M per year. Note that this isn't the total increase in cost, because some portion of that they were already paying (to Cogent). Netflix has over 35M subscribers in the U.S. That's less than a dollar a year per subscriber. Even working it out based on total Comcast subscribers it's not nearly $1 per month per subscriber. It's up to an order of magnitude off.

But "Netflix had to raise rates by $0.15 because of Comcast's extortion, and another $0.85 because of inflation, investor expectations, content acquisition, overhead, and various other increased costs across their business" doesn't have that same ring to it.

EDIT: Honestly, I'm shocked that what I've been saying in this thread is even controversial. It seems pretty self-evident if you're at all objective.

This seems...naive. Netflix is a company that for quite some time secretly throttled disc-by-mail users, while advertising an "unlimited' plan. If I remember correctly, they even denied doing so and were eventually sued (and settled).

Netflix is a business. I'd agree that they are more consumer friendly and trustworthy than Verizon, but I think a 99.99%/0.01% split is a little...extreme. I get it. You hate you some Verizon. Just as I hate me some Comcast. But I think you're probably lacking just a bit in objectivity here.

*slow clap* Call it like it is. I was really disappointed when Netflix seemingly caved to Comcast, but they seem to have taken the offensive in recent weeks, and they're right, the only way things will change is if enough customers complain and put pressure on the ISP's. I don't live in the states anymore (I have to stream via vpn, I use https://ironsocket.com), it's scary to see how quickly things are changing.

I had this discussion with a Canadian ISP at ITW in Chicago a few weeks ago because they were boasting that they had to deploy 10's of more 10G ports to handle the Netflix traffic. I asked them why they were doing that. I told that it was inefficient to maintain all of those links and that they should work with Netflix to deploy a CDN in their network to host the content efficiently. Their concern was that they would not have any control over how much of the last mile Netflix used for delivery and could impact the experience for everyone else. By employing the interconnects and transit, at leas they had to ability to control how much traffic floods their network. I'm not saying either way is better or the right way. The point is, distributing video in a unicast method without network management can have deleterious consequences on any network, no matter how much bandwidth there is. And new capacity cant be spun up overnight, especially on the edge. Tim Wu's conclusion and most rational network architects and engineers state that traffic management is the best, most cost effective, and method of handling this traffic. That might mean that content providers may have to work with ISPs on how to deliver that traffic which is what Netflix and Comcast ended up doing. And in the end, Netflix is going to get a channel on the set top box to deliver their content. What more could Netflix want than to have that type of access to every house with a cable connection? Netflix was just upset that Comcast insisted that Netflix foot part of the bill because now every Tier 1,2,and 3 ISP out there is now going to demand the same thing. And they are rightfully allowed to have those discussions. It is also why the FCC is staying away from it.

The fast lane is just trying to scare people in to a way of thinking. It has always been policy to direct connect with other networks that deliver large amounts of traffic from one place to another. This happens for many reasons. 1. A better customer experience because the traffic has a "shorter" more optimized path to the end user. 2. Other Internet traffic does not have to contend with queuing buffers for time going through routers and may get put on a lower priority for voice or network management traffic 3. Contending with packet per second throughput limitations on routers and switches, etc., Instead, people want all that traffic to be treated equally. Unfortunately, TCP/IP was not designed for latent sensitive traffic. In fact, it likes applications where the data gets there when it gets there. That's why we call it connectionless. To get around that, QoS/CoS was implemented to help voice, video, and other latent sensitive traffic get there to make a good experience. But now the fear has been put in people that is bad because it preferences some traffic over others. Now, if an ISP preferences their "own" voice traffic over say Vonage, I think that is wrong. To preference an ISPs own voice packet over a Google email packet, that is OK based on the type of application. But the draconian viewpoints people are making are stating that all traffic should be equal and we should throw bandwidth at the problem. That is just not rational, cost effective, or plain possible.

When I say that Comcast and Netflix need to work together. It is to say that they need to figure out the best way to deliver that traffic mutually. But that is going to cost money. To expect Comcast to foot the bill for an over the top provider to deliver traffic in a method that is not economical or can break a network is just plain unfair.

Okay, mostly a good summary of the opposition. I took the time to look up the basics of Traffic Shaping on Wikipedia - the basis of which I think I'm familiar with; that a Skype conversation or a twitch-reflexes video game's netcode should get higher immediate priority than an overnight lumbering file transfer.

But from what it seems, the only way to sort packets appropriately is by deep inspection - none would have any way of reporting "I'm a video game, this information is very time sensitive" - and if they did openly, many applications would just lie about it to get a better treatment. So, it seems like any success at network shaping relies on the ISP performing their own determination of what deserves priority.

It's like the NSA's spying to find terrorists - As a network engineer, you likely have the best of intentions to give people the best experience, but the capabilities necessary to perform those duties perfectly give you powers that you don't quite recognize the danger of. Any evil, or even lazy, ISP could break the quality of America's next big startup when they need it most. By this design, it kind of seems like any encrypted, or unreadable traffic would just automatically get minimal priority.

Here, though, is where I think we get into the murky area of what's "good enough". I'm pretty sure at any company, each type of engineer sees certain types of code or workings in their company that they think are super-inefficient, and would like to have ways of improving. But, their propositions to overhaul the system are rejected because of the way everything is successfully working in its current mode, or because of 100 unforeseen circumstances that might ruin everything.

I, quite frankly, don't believe that the situation would be so horrendous if ISPs treated packets equally, especially with the advances in raw thoroughput. It's less about perfection than it is about fairness. In the same way, if a cloud service provider saw that one of their virtual machines was always at 100% usage because its owner was calculating pi over and over, they could complain to him - but the owner would be able to reply "Tough shit, you rented this service to me, I'm putting it to use". Just like how, for instance, Ars has a commenting system, and a large number of comments are too horrible to read, and that certainly degrades quality.

Mainly, a lot of us are still highly unconvinced from the fact that other nations, and Google, get their connections blazing-fast with ease. That's simple fact, which goes a long way past a network engineer's theories about what HAS to happen for the internet not to fall apart.

I don't know why they waited until after they started caving to ISPs' demands before they started doing this. They should have done this first and then just let the ISPs take the heat from their customers.

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That, or when they announced their price increase, lay the blame squarely on Comcast and AT&T's shoulders. Let their customers know exactly why their monthly cost is increasing.

This, they could break it down as line items on your bill, the way ISPs break down bills showing all the different taxes and fees you have to pay. Then they could highlight the fact that both you and them are paying your ISP.

Maybe, If verizon gets 10000 calls an hour during next 'House Of Cards' premiere they will realize what is cheaper:Fix the problemOr keep pretending it does not exists while the need to hire 100 CSRs listening to complaints all day

#capitalism

Considering how little a telephone operator in Bangladesh costs, probably the second option.

What's changed, that they now need to hire CSRs just to respond to complaints? They didn't put in that wait stack for nothing!

Make any speculation you want. I am as anti-corporate and pro an open Internet as anyone. My job is in fact working with partner ISPs on how to deliver traffic and negotiate with ISPs. My concern is that the net neutrality debate is getting skewed and the consumer is being used as the pawn. And a lot of people really don't understand how the Internet works and are being led with analogies that don't really reflect the problem. There are no "fast lanes" Traffic isn't being slowed. In fact, by Netflix working with Comcast, Vz and others on how to deliver the traffic, they are being good network citizen by moving the bulk of their traffic off the Internet pipes and to connections that better benefit the CDNs/ISPs and improve the customer experience. What makes me mad through is that Netflix is trying to pit the ISP customers against the folks that they are dependent on making their business and fear that their business model isn;t scalable as network traffic increases. Instead, they are trying to get the government to intervene on their behalf instead of doing business. IMO, not different than pitting lobbyists against our environmental issues. And to prove my point, I am against the Comcast/TWC merger. More so for content and carriage distribution but I agree that when content providers need to work with the ISP on how to move the traffic, the new Comcast will not be easy to work with.

But a much simpler solution was suggested to Comcast et al and summarily rejected by them - co-locate some servers in those ISP datacenters; that takes some of the congestion out of the equation. This is not at all hard for Comcast, Verizon and AT&T to solve, and their actions, thus far, have been to entirely degrade their consumer's collective experience in order to effectively extort money from companies such as Netflix. That is a direct result of the collusive nature of the Big Five telcos in the US and their collective oligopoly in this market.

I do, however, definitely agree with you that Comcast should be banned from merging with any company until such a time as its legal obligations towards the municipalities and the government have been met. This is true for all of the major US telcos (although AT&T are by far the most egregious example of this.)

Maybe, If verizon gets 10000 calls an hour during next 'House Of Cards' premiere they will realize what is cheaper:Fix the problemOr keep pretending it does not exists while the need to hire 100 CSRs listening to complaints all day

#capitalism

Considering how little a telephone operator in Bangladesh costs, probably the second option.

Actually all Verizon FiOS Calls are taken by Americans in America.

Source: I used to work in a FiOS Call Center. And yes, we got calls about slow Netflix speed all the time. We were instructed to run a speedtest (on the Verizon approved and hosted speedtest site of course) and if it was in acceptable ranges we had to advise the customer that it was not Verizon's network or equipment that it was whatever provider/website(again, mostly Netflix) that was the issue.

I call bullshit. I'm a FIOS customer and I've had to make a number of service calls. Without fail, they have ALL ended up in an off-shore call center. Even in the few instances where I've used the IM help, the other end is clearly not a native English speaker. Maybe some of the higher level support is based in the US, but the initial support absolutely is not.

Read my post carefully. All calls are taken in America. I am not sure about chats since my center was calls only.

Trust there were plenty of people in just the call center I worked in(upwards of 400 CSRs at one time) who did not speak English very well. Again this was based on my experience in just one of multiple FiOS call centers.

And just to be clear, that doesn't mean that customer service is automatically better since the call centers are based in America, just trying to get some facts straightened out.

For anyone trying to blame Netflix's network for their slow performance consider this.

If Netflix itself is slow:1) No ISP will ever have the performance for 1080p video.2) The performance of other ISPs wouldn't be as high as they are.3) The performance would not suddenly go up once ISP issues are corrected.

Netflix has every reason to deliver the video to you as fast as possible because they know you want to stream these big ass movies. ISPs have every reason to spend as little as possible on their network because it's just an ongoing expense. That's why these arguments pop up in the first place: the last mile ISPs' goals directly oppose those of Internet services like Netflix. This is only going to get resolved when the goals of ISPs and Internet services are aligned, and the market is not set up that way right now. It is in other countries.

I would trust Netflix 99.99% and Verizon 0.01%.

I think that's a flawed analysis. ISPs connect to Netflix in different ways. Some have the Open Connect direct peering (because it makes business sense for that ISP), and some get content through another CDN (like the Comcast CDN that Netflix just agreed to use) or other form of paid direct peering, and some get access via an unpaid interconnect with Cogent. And even if the ISP is getting the data via the interconnect with Cogent, their port may not be as congested as the port that your (or my) ISP uses to connect to Cogent. It's possible for the performance on ISP to vary without either ISP being a particularly good or bad actor.

True, but we do know certain large ISPs are choosing to run their ports overloaded, and are refusing to correct it.

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And ISPs do have an interest in delivering content efficiently and providing a decent customer experience, because if it sucks too bad customers actually will quit using it until it improves or another provider enters the market.

No, their interest is in finding that sweet spot between usable and cost. Thanks to the F-ed up system you have in the US, there are basically no other providers to go to. You guys need Local Loop Unbundling and a Government owned or government supervised company to take over the wires to offer nondiscrimintory access to retail providers

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Netflix, on the other hand, does have an interest in shifting any blame for service problems off onto the ISPs. Perhaps the Netflix servers are just slammed and can't keep up. Or perhaps Netflix agree to use the Verizon CDN, but only at 2/3 of the service level need to ensure quality service for Verizon's customers. Look at the posts on the this tread - running about 9 to 1 against Verizon. If Netflix knows you are predisposed - and encourages you - to blame Verizon, rather than Netflix, for any service problem you have, why wouldn't they?

Difference is with Netflix, I can cancel that in a heartbeat and lose nothing, so they're more incentivised to fix things. ISPs have those contracts and exit fees to bash your head with to keep you on board just long enoguh until your anger subsides and you forget you wanted to cancel inthe first place.

Maybe, If verizon gets 10000 calls an hour during next 'House Of Cards' premiere they will realize what is cheaper:Fix the problemOr keep pretending it does not exists while the need to hire 100 CSRs listening to complaints all day

#capitalism

Considering how little a telephone operator in Bangladesh costs, probably the second option.

Actually all Verizon FiOS Calls are taken by Americans in America.

Source: I used to work in a FiOS Call Center. And yes, we got calls about slow Netflix speed all the time. We were instructed to run a speedtest (on the Verizon approved and hosted speedtest site of course) and if it was in acceptable ranges we had to advise the customer that it was not Verizon's network or equipment that it was whatever provider/website(again, mostly Netflix) that was the issue.

I call bullshit. I'm a FIOS customer and I've had to make a number of service calls. Without fail, they have ALL ended up in an off-shore call center. Even in the few instances where I've used the IM help, the other end is clearly not a native English speaker. Maybe some of the higher level support is based in the US, but the initial support absolutely is not.

Read my post carefully. All calls are taken in America. I am not sure about chats since my center was calls only.

Trust there were plenty of people in just the call center I worked in(upwards of 400 CSRs at one time) who did not speak English very well. Again this was based on my experience in just one of multiple FiOS call centers.

And just to be clear, that doesn't mean that customer service is automatically better since the call centers are based in America, just trying to get some facts straightened out.

It is a tangent, but you will tend to find in-house call centres offer better service than outsourced.

In house centres can focus on quality, and can be run on a revenue neutral basis. They can take the time to ensure that staff are trained to provide the level of service they require.

Outsourced call centres tend to be paid by the call, with the price adjusted by the average customer wait time. If they badly handle your call forcing you to call back its no skin off their nose - in fact, it works out better for them if you do as they now get paid for 2 calls. Each minute they spend training is a minute that advisor isnt earning the company revenue - thats why it often seems like they don't know anything, cos noone bothered to train them as they needed the bodies on the phone to earn money.

But a much simpler solution was suggested to Comcast et al and summarily rejected by them - co-locate some servers in those ISP datacenters; that takes some of the congestion out of the equation.

Netflix has offered a great solution to help offload network congestion, and you're right it's available to any ISP that wants to take advantage of it. The sad fact is, this takes power and cooling....so the solution isn't "Free."

I don't know why they waited until after they started caving to ISPs' demands before they started doing this. They should have done this first and then just let the ISPs take the heat from their customers.

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That, or when they announced their price increase, lay the blame squarely on Comcast and AT&T's shoulders. Let their customers know exactly why their monthly cost is increasing.

This, they could break it down as line items on your bill, the way ISPs break down bills showing all the different taxes and fees you have to pay. Then they could highlight the fact that both you and them are paying your ISP.

Can we please get past this tired rhetoric of "Verizon is charging Netflix for bandwidth that I've already paid for!"?

1. In the normal, every day operations of the Internet, both parties pay for bandwidth. They may pay different ISPs, or the same ISPs, but both parties pay someone. Netflix pays an ISP, and you pay an ISP - but that's not double dipping.

2. Previously, Netflix paid Cogent and you paid your ISP (for the sake of argument, lets say its Comcast). Then Netflix struck a deal with Comcast and moved a major portion of their traffic off of Cogent and onto Comcast's CDN service. Now Netflix pays Comcast for the Comcast bandwidth it uses, and Cogent for the non-Comcast bandwidth it uses (so, it's now paying Cogent less). You continue to pay your subscription fee to Comcast, and Netflix continues to pay for the bandwidth it uses, albeit to multiple (and different0 parties than before - but again, still only a case of both sides paying for the bandwidth they are using.

3. Sometimes large Internet service providers exchange traffic for free, and sometimes they charge for the traffic they pick up and deliver. It's my understanding that RCN and several mid-to-small ISPs pay multiple Tier I backbone providers for Internet traffic - but you don't see Netflix arguing to Cogent, "hey, I've already paid for that bandwidth - you're getting a double payment when you charge the ISP to deliver that same traffic!" Logically, if it's wrong for Verizon or Comcast to charge Cogent, then it is wrong for Cogent to charge any smaller ISP that it interconnects with, right?

4. The major source of friction in this situation was between Cogent and several large ISPs like Comcast and Verizon - not Netflix, although Netflix was the proximate cause of the dispute. What this dispute highlights is the fundamental shift in the economics of Internet network maintenance and service deliver being driven by the widespread introduction (and use) of high-volume streaming video and gaming services. Free peering probably made sense in a world where the traffic volumes being exchanged were roughly symmetrical (at least in a 1:2 or 1:3 range, perhaps even 1:4) - both sides are getting paid and the workload and demands on each network are probably roughly equal. However, it appears to me that Netflix introduces a huge asymmetry, more on the order of 1:10 or greater. In this environment, I can understand how some parties would want to revisit the economic relationship of network partners and how the relative costs and compensation are distributed, just a terrestrial phone service had to move away from "bill and keep" practices for interconnection and adopt a system that actually accounted for traffic generated and terminated on their networks.

Do I know if the deal that Comcast or Verizon were trying to extract from Cogent was fair? No. Do I know what a fair system is for pricing interconnection? Not yet. And perhaps, all said and done, Comcast and Verizon are still on the wrong side of this equation and should be paying Cogent and others for the traffic, rather than the other way around (but I suspect not).

But I do know that the "I've already paid for that!" argument is just plain wrong.